Developer Using Tylenol Tablets

htmlguru4242 · Nov 9, 2005

Developer Using Tylenol Tablets; It works

I was interested in something that someone (i believe it was jdef) said on another topic about using Tylenol as a developer. I realized that acetominiphen is similar enough to p-aminophenol to work. So I followed another apug'ers reccomendation to add some NaOH to a solution of Tylenol.

So this is what I did:
+Heat 400ml of distilled water to about 90ºF
+Grind Up 4 Tylenol caplets (I used Tylenol 8-hour, 650mg caplets)
+Add this to the water, stir to dissolve
+Add about 1 tsp of NaOH (lye, Red Devil drain cleaner works OK), stir to dissolve
+Add 500mg of asorbic acid (Vitamin C powder); if using tablets, grind these up first, then add
+Shake the mixture to allow everything to dissolve. There may be some undissolved left.

I ran some RC paper, exposed in contact with a 120 neg. for about 3s. under room light through the dev. In about 2 - 3 seconds, the image was fully deveoped, with very clear whites and some of the best thich, rich blacks that I have yet seen, and i nice grey scale. I may have to dilute the developer alot for it to be useful.

I tries it with film, but the pH was WAY too high; I'll try to add some acid & lower it later.

Jordan · Nov 9, 2005

Interesting experiment (and I think it has been described before, either here or on USENET). Acetaminophen is the N-acetyl derivative of p-aminophenol. This alone makes them very different, chemically, and I highly doubt that acetaminophen is the active developing agent. Rather, I think you're forming p-aminophenol in situ after the addition of NaOH by hydrolysis of the N-acetyl group, and that it is this newly formed p-aminophenol that is the active developing agent.

psvensson · Nov 9, 2005

Did you try it without the Tylenol? Ascorbic acid + lye will develop paper to a very good d-max.

htmlguru4242 · Nov 9, 2005

Jordan, you are probably right.

And yes, I did try it without the ascorbic acid, but it was so caustic that it made some of hte emulsion come off; I added it to lower the pH as much as possible.

Does anyone think that this'll work with films as well?

David A. Goldfarb · Nov 9, 2005

There are a few people around here who think that p-aminophenol makes an outstanding film developer.

Photo Engineer · Nov 9, 2005

The ascorbic acid will develop all by itself in that caustic solution. IDK how well, but it will.

In addition, many modern papers contain incorporated developing agents and can be developed all by themselves in base. You need no additional developing agent.

You can test this by just putting some paper through plain diluted lye solution. I've done it with MVIV and Polycontrast both and it works.

PE

htmlguru4242 · Nov 9, 2005

So are you saying that the pAminopheol is not the developing agent? Because the developing action was nearly instant; the paper immediately turned black. How fast is developing with plain NaOH in water?

scootermm · Nov 9, 2005

so does this mean I can use developer for a headache?

titrisol · Nov 9, 2005

Actually Vitamin C + NaOH maybe your developer agent
Xtol is one of the ascorbate developers available.

Did you try it without vitamin C?

htmlguru4242 said:
So are you saying that the pAminopheol is not the developing agent? Because the developing action was nearly instant; the paper immediately turned black. How fast is developing with plain NaOH in water?

Gerald Koch · Nov 9, 2005

This actually works and for a film developer you don't need the ascorbic acid. The first article was published in the Dignan Newletter about 30 years ago. The author also published an article using black hair dye as a film developer. The dye packet contained paraphenylenediamine which is a well known developing agent.

htmlguru4242 · Nov 9, 2005

Hokay, I've done a little more testing. Paper in a solution of lye exhibits rapid development. However, after washing with water and weak ascorbic acid (dilute vinegar, in the spirit of kitchen chemistry) to remove some of the paper's incorporated developer, the lye exhibited very weak development, while the "developer" resulted in a much darker black (I was using fully fogged paper). I think that a lot of refinements are in order, though.

Anybody else want to test this to ensure that I'm not missing something here?

titrisol · Nov 9, 2005

ascorbic acid = vitamin C

vinegar = acetic acid

htmlguru4242 · Nov 9, 2005

Umm.... OK

vineger == acetic acid == stop bath to remove / neutralize integral developer ...

I just wanted to ensure that the developer was removed from hte paper so my tests could be well controlled ...

Jordan · Nov 9, 2005

Hm. What kind of paper are you using?

Marv · Nov 9, 2005

Scootermm may be on to something.....I just thought being in the darkroom cured the head ache and relieved the stress. It must have been the "dektol" all the time......

srs5694 · Nov 10, 2005

Another report on this, using film rather than paper: I mixed up some Tylenol Developer as per the instructions in the first post. (I used CVS-brand acetaminophen caplets and filtered tap water, though.) Given the very short times reported for paper development, my first attempt was to put a snip of film leader into a 1:9 dilution of the solution. That produced nothing, even after it had sat for an hour or two. When I tried again with a thicker dilution, it darkened the film snip. I also noticed that the stock solution had changed from cloudy white to cloudy with more than a hint of pink in the intervening couple of hours, so I'm not 100% sure that the 1:9 dilution was the problem; it could be some time was needed for some vital chemistry to play out after initial mixing.

For the next level, I shot a roll of 35mm Ilford Pan F+ and cut it in two. The first half I developed at 1:1 dilution for 9:00 at 20C. This produced images that I expect would be printable, but they were somewhat thin, so I developed the second half of the roll for 11:00 at 20C. These were better, but still a bit thin. (Sorry, I have no densitometer, so I can't give quantitative information on density.) Both halves of this roll are currently drying; I haven't scanned them or made prints, so I can't comment beyond saying that they've clearly got images on them.

I haven't tried making this developer without the acetaminophen, so I can't address the question of whether the acetaminophen or an acetaminophen byproduct is really necessary.

By my calculation, this developer, used at 1:1 dilution and in a tank requiring 250ml/roll, costs $0.19/roll. This is a little on the high side for mix-it-yourself developers. (DS-10 is $0.10/roll, PC-Glycol is $0.04/roll, and Anchell's Rodinal-style developer is $0.10/roll, for comparison.) This is based on a 24-caplet bottle of CVS-brand acetaminophen, and that's the biggest single cost. I'm sure buying a larger bottle would bring the cost down a lot.

htmlguru4242 · Nov 10, 2005

As to the cost, you can reduce it severely; Costco sells 1000 500mg tablets for $7.00.

I've mixed up some more of this, and its currently reacting. The color is becoming darker and its moving in a sort of pink-orange direction. I'll leave it for another few hours.

And, the paper that I was using was Kodak Polycontrast RC.

srs5694 · Nov 10, 2005

I've scanned (but not yet made conventional enlargements of) the negatives I developed. Overall, they look pretty good. In particular, they seem pretty sharp at first glance, although I've not done any side-by-side comparisons. This stuff might just make a decent acutance developer.

htmlguru4242 · Nov 10, 2005

srs5694, post the scans when you have the chance, please. I'd like to see how they came out; I'll run a roll of Neopan 400 through the dev. tonight, after it has time to react sufficiently. It is quite an odd color, made worse by the color of the dye that was on the tablets.

I'll bracket a little bit in exposure, in order to see what type of speed gain / loss the developer gives.

Photo Engineer · Nov 10, 2005

htmlguru4242 said:
As to the cost, you can reduce it severely; Costco sells 1000 500mg tablets for $7.00.

I've mixed up some more of this, and its currently reacting. The color is becoming darker and its moving in a sort of pink-orange direction. I'll leave it for another few hours.

And, the paper that I was using was Kodak Polycontrast RC.

Among all of the various papers I tested, the Polycontrast IV RC was the highest in activity when fogged and treated with base. The Ilford MG IV was second highest. The Kodak product blackened instantly, while the Ilford gradually turned gray.

If you dip them into alkali solution, you can just see an orange colored liquid rolling off the paper into the solution. This is incorporated developing agent leaching out of the paper and into the solution.

PE

srs5694 · Nov 10, 2005

htmlguru4242 said:
srs5694, post the scans when you have the chance, please. I'd like to see how they came out.

Here you go:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/tylenol-dev-full.jpg
http://www.rodsbooks.com/tylenol-dev-crop.jpg

These are full-frame (1024x679) but low-res and cropped but high-res (2700 dpi negative scan, using a Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 and VueScan software) versions. The photo was taken with a Fujica ST-801 and its standard f/1.8 55mm lens set at f/4 with a flash. The cropped version gives a sense of the acutance because you can see how sharp the numbers are on the filter scale. I don't have a direct comparison with another developer, though, and that would really be necessary to judge the developer.

I think I need to give my enlarger a good cleaning.

htmlguru4242 · Nov 10, 2005

Wow, that's pretty nice.

I'v brewed this up and posted the formula but haven't gotten around to trying it on film myself (doesn't make sense, but oh well).

Hopefully we can get one of our photochemistry gurus (Photo Engineer?) to answer if the development action is a result of Ascorbic acid + NaOH, or the p-Aminophenol ... Though it doesn't sound like ascorbic acid, as the formulas for pure ascobic acid developers call for about 5 - 10 g of ascorbic acid per 8oz (about 240ml) of water, and call for development times of about 20 - 30 minutes at an elevated temp.

The ascoric acid in this formula was only added to keep the pH down. I didn't want to run film through the soluton of pH 12 ...

Photo Engineer · Nov 10, 2005

htmlguru4242 said:
Wow, that's pretty nice.

I'v brewed this up and posted the formula but haven't gotten around to trying it on film myself (doesn't make sense, but oh well).

Hopefully we can get one of our photochemistry gurus (Photo Engineer?) to answer if the development action is a result of Ascorbic acid + NaOH, or the p-Aminophenol ... Though it doesn't sound like ascorbic acid, as the formulas for pure ascobic acid developers call for about 5 - 10 g of ascorbic acid per 8oz (about 240ml) of water, and call for development times of about 20 - 30 minutes at an elevated temp.

The ascoric acid in this formula was only added to keep the pH down. I didn't want to run film through the soluton of pH 12 ...

I think it is important to note that both p-amino phenol and ascorbic acid are powerful developing (reducing) agents. They may even be superadditive.

A very good developer is Elon + Ascorbic Acid, and does a fine job developing film at a moderate pH.

Therefore, to answer all of the questions that come up in my mind, it would be necessary to mix up developers which used elon in place of tylenol, or conversely citric acid in place of ascorbic acid to test this out. In addition, the developers with the tylenol would have to be tested at different intervals to see how much hydrolysis of the aceto group took place and how much activity change this yielded.

My opinion is that you are getting a superadditive mixture of p-amino phenol and ascorbic acid, making an Xtol type developer. Of course rodinol relies on p-amino phenol at relatively high pH as well. Who knows?

Experiment. Experimentation with chemicals is always fun, isn't it? Much more fun that that d****al stuff, right?

PE

htmlguru4242 · Nov 10, 2005

Chemical experimentation is quite fun. I have to say that hte most chemistry experimentation I've ever done with my d*g*t*l camera is finding what household cleaner does the best job of cleaning grime off of the screen.

I'll try it with a diffrent acid, though I don't have any citric acid on hand. I do hav boric acid, how would that do?

psvensson · Nov 10, 2005

Boric acid would do fine. Even better, skip the hydroxide and use carbonate instead, like Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. You still need to test if it's the base that's developing the paper on its own.

Developer Using Tylenol Tablets

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